The Reagan White House moved to lower tax rates for developers in the 1980s and then years of low interest rates glutted downtowns with office buildings. Time's up.
Most downtowns are built for commuters rather than residents. They forced out residents in favor of building higher cost commercial real estate. What residential buildings there is targets only the highest incomes. No surprise they are struggling.
Hear me out, and this might sound crazy: but what if we build walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods with shops, parks, and libraries? That way people will boost local economy instead of getting into car and driving to centralized locations like Walmart or malls?
But then you will hear many decry the creation of 15 minute cities and they want to force us to never leave the area and take away our cars to control us.
I wish I could end this with /s but I’ve actually seen people post this sadly.
The problem is that once again people with genuine concerns get derided and insulted which pushes them deeper into these views - people have a lot of great reasons for not wanting their car taken away and fearing that the rich’s solution to population growth is going to be to force people into prison communities, that’s been a common theme in history - Australia and America only exist as they are because of the clearances, and the North of England owes most it’s population to poors getting tricked into moving to brutally compact works towns and treated like cattle.
Instead of hearing the fears and needs of people they’re just attacked, called stupid and going by most the times I’ve seen it come up flooded by people saying things like ‘cars are bad, it would be better if we got rid of them all’ which is super unhelpful, it’s like calling a movement ‘defund the police’ and having everyone yell about how we should get rid of them all because they’re all bastard’s but not address the actual needs society has for people tasked with stopping crime - why do people supporting sensible and important things have to make their views sound so intensely unpalatable?
We need to address all the great things that cars and suburban living have brought us, and yes I can already hear the comments from people yelling that it’s a literal hellscape and traffic and etc etc etc but what are people who are living lives they enjoy going to say when they hear that? What are people who don’t want to live the small community lifestyle going to say when told it’s the only good way of living? When people who enjoy the benefits of modern logistics get told they’ll just learn to adapt to having less?
The dumbest bit is we could be focusing on positive additions to peoples lives and offering greater efficiency and freedom through the use of modern planning and technology - that’s what the 15 min city idea is actually about (kinda, depending who’s version you look at).
The logistics of a 15 min lifestyle have to exceed in quality of life the current system, and people need to actually agree not just be badgerd into accepting less. I could talk for days about how this can be done, key points include integrated transport networks to facilitate travel and exploration, nationalised version of Amazon and eBay with community shipping, zoning rules based on measured impact rather than use type (e.g. you’re welcome to live in a high noise area or have shops in a low pollution and traffic area if you can accept the limitations), nationalised services for community utilities to avoid corporate monopolies, measures to improve temporary relocation and travel, investment in affordable and efficient multi-transport cargo (rather than a removal van taking your house the whole way you fill a cargo container and have it collected by a lorry to do the first mile journey to a station where it’s loaded onto a train or ship to move to a transport hub then forwarded to the final destination where it’s taken last mile to the new address by a lorry…)
Improving logistics has to come first, the rallying cry can’t be ‘you need this and will have to try and learn to live with it’ it has to be ‘this is how we can live better lives’
You are right. And that is because any departure from that 15 minute zone by a vehicle is supposed to be billed. And people don’t want to be restricted to move free of charge only within those 15 minutes. Nobody is stupid not to want everything they need on a daily basis within a spiting distance.
My local walkable grocery store is a Safeway. They sell a 3lb pack of ground turkey for $18.
Walmart, target, smart and final, and Lucky’s are all <$12, but I have to drive. And that’s one item. I save hundreds a month in groceries because I have a car and can shop around. I can wait for deals, I can buy in bulk.
The idea of a walkable city is nice, but if you restrict competition, prices skyrocket. And yeah, that Safeway is walkable to an apartment, the only grocery store that is, and they know it. It is infuriating to dismiss practicality for an dream.
Walkable cities and car hate are just another generations NYMBY’s. Those rich enough and finantialy secure to afford premiums that push others out. Meanwhile this transitional uncertainty greatly harms many of us struggling to make ends meet.
That’s one thing I won’t understand about this self-reclusive, anti-atomony movement.
Its basic logic. If I have a walkable radius of 1 mile and a drivable radius of 10, I have the accessability of all grocery stores within that area with a greater selection and purchasing power. These apartments I referenced have exactly one store to shop for groceries. The decision is literally A) Do you purchase an overpriced product for convenience or B) spend an extra hour and public transit to hunt a deal.
I mean sometimes I feel like I’m arguing with children; zero experience in real life. Yes, some can make it work. No, it doesn’t work for everyone. Area of accessibility and the competitive choices it allows, are essential to those not as well off.
I’m still undecided about this “fuck cars” movement, but you seem to be kind of saying that walkable cities won’t work because presently you can’t walk everywhere you want to go. I think the answer to that is simply that you don’t live in a walkable city - your city has been designed around the notion that everyone has access to a car.
I guess the inability to drive around smurfing up bargains is a very specific problem that walkable cities aren’t intended to address. I think the basic premise is that if there’s more people seeking basic vittles within walking distance from their home then competition will appear. They may not be quite as cheap as at the Walmart 10 miles away, but then the opportunities for local vendors will improve your own personal financial circumstances also.
As an aside, when you spend a little time in a large city with public transport and lots of shops, it’s easy to see how the fuck cars movement seems like a no-brainer. “If no one had cars then no one would need them!”… but as someone who lives in a regional / rural area it’s really hard to see how it could possibly work. I mean perhaps “possible” in some way but it definitely undermines most of the reasons I enjoy living away from a large city.
That’s the result of poor planning, and not true everywhere. Places with good planning for non-automotive transport have much smaller shops, smaller streets, and more of everything because of it. The radius you can reach within 15 minutes might be smaller, but the actual number of places you can get to can be much larger.
That doesn’t even make sense - you are in a neighborhood that only has one grocery store nearby due to car dependent planning, therefore walkability isn’t practical?
I live in a neighborhood that was definitely originally designed for cars and has been gradually getting better and I’ve already got at least two grocery stores I can easily walk to, plus two convenience stores and a pharmacy that’s kind of also a convenience store. Then I’ve got another three or four that I can easily bike to. And these aren’t small grocery stores, they’re all like massive supermarkets designed originally around car traffic.
If you spend time in places that have actual walkable neighborhoods, you find lots of much smaller grocery stores and you can easily shop around and compare prices on foot.
I think there’s a big difference in how you understand these things depending what angle you come from, logistically your situation makes no sense and only seems to exist, as you said, because of car centric infrastructure. Where I live was very much designed around foot traffic and yes it’s great being able to get all the daily things nearby, I love the parks and on rare occasions I actually went to go where the busses take me, plan to be back before they stop and don’t have to take more than a bags worth of stuff with me they’re great too.
There are very real problems though, local library is useful if you order books and don’t mind waiting forever, shops likewise are great for bread, cheese and snacks but unless you want a very boring diet and dont mind paying a premium otherwise you need to go somewhere with a higher volume of trade than the walkable zone around the local shops can support - that’s before you consider things beyond food like tools, clothes, and services.
All the small grocery stores their entire customer base can walk to are more expensive than larger stores and they all sell the same basic items - it’s just logistics. It’s not hard to look at the lives people here lived before cars, they had less and did less and lived much worse lives - well those the couldn’t afford a horse drawn carriage of course, personal wheeled transport has been deemed a necessity of good living for centuries.
My car is 20 years old, runs great, gets 30mpg, and easy to repair. It costs about $40/month in gas, $800/year in insurance and I purchased it used for $11500. Unexpected expenses usually run $500 every 4 years or so.
It opened doors to better employment, bridged the gap to my distant friends, supports my recreational activities, saved my life with a medical emergency.
Without it, I couldnt see my friends, family, or nieces/nephews. I couldnt see the milky way without light pollution. I’d have to accept what I’m offered rather than find what I need. I have to autonomy to pick a direction and explore; to find nature, peace or get away from civilization.
I’m not rich, but my life is richer with what I can do with a car.
I generally agree with you, but I think you missed the mark here. People who manage to buy a used car that they may need to get by are not the issue here. I hate cars and car dependant cities, but also have a lease on a used one that I can barely afford because the town I’m in right now is 100% carbrained. When I lived in the city, I was proud not to own a car. I also currently don’t have the money for it in my budget, so my quality of life has taken a significant hit by this necessary purchase (though it would be much worse without it). I live paycheck-to-paycheck right now too.
You’re being so disingenuous, making it sound like car ownership is out the reach of half of Americans is the most absurd thing I’ve heard in a long time.
For most people a car is a vital expense to allow them to live, work and shop at far less expense so becomes a net saving. If you’re working minimum wage then you can afford a car, this is born out by the fact that cars are totally ubiquitous.
You earn more than me, my car cost 2k. Over 90% of American households have at least one car, there’s a lot wrong with cars back lack of access to them is not one of the issues
Well, I live where there is terrible public transportation so everybody and their grandma has to drive everywhere and can tell you that’s a whole different ball game. Sure, maybe it’s cheap to drive where you are but here insurance is at least $300 per month per car, because since everyone is driving there are more accidents. So you may be getting subsidized by all the people who aren’t driving, basically.
Our downtown though has moved in the opposite direction, it was dead when I was in highschool, remember walking around there in the weekends looking at all the old empty buildings that used to be retail, we would explore it like it was historical ruins. But over time it’s come back and now many people living there & working there, restaurants and bars and little groceries, different from what it was, malls killed downtown retail then internet killed most of the the malls.
I’m thankfully not American. There are 3 large grocery stores within walking distance of my home. Also 5 bakeries, 3 greensgrocers, 2 furniture sellers, 7 butchers, 5 banks, 3 stationeries, 4 hairdressers… the list goes on and on. I’m not even very close to the city center, either.
Homer : Sir, I need to know where I can get some business hammocks.
Hank Scorpio : Hammocks? My goodness, what an idea. Why didn’t I think of that? Hammocks! Homer, there’s four places. There’s the Hammock Hut, that’s on third.
Homer : Uh-huh.
Hank Scorpio : There’s Hammocks-R-Us, that’s on third too. You got Put-Your-Butt-There.
Homer : Mm-Hmm.
Hank Scorpio : That’s on third. Swing Low, Sweet Chariot… Matter of fact, they’re all in the same complex; it’s the hammock complex on third.
Most downtowns are built for commuters rather than residents. They forced out residents in favor of building higher cost commercial real estate. What residential buildings there is targets only the highest incomes. No surprise they are struggling.
Hear me out, and this might sound crazy: but what if we build walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods with shops, parks, and libraries? That way people will boost local economy instead of getting into car and driving to centralized locations like Walmart or malls?
Then who would we sell gas to?
Sadly this is one of the biggest pieces of the puzzle, even more sadly the rest of it is probably racism
That sounds like some of that communist soci-libral nazism to me, for sure for sure /s
We had that. We bulldozed it.
I mean, what kind of healthy life are you trying to live?
But then you will hear many decry the creation of 15 minute cities and they want to force us to never leave the area and take away our cars to control us.
I wish I could end this with /s but I’ve actually seen people post this sadly.
We will reach a point when the “I can’t park anywhere” crowd is outvoted by the I want to walk to run errands crowd.
That’s already happening in some places. The cities right outside Boston, for example.
The problem is that once again people with genuine concerns get derided and insulted which pushes them deeper into these views - people have a lot of great reasons for not wanting their car taken away and fearing that the rich’s solution to population growth is going to be to force people into prison communities, that’s been a common theme in history - Australia and America only exist as they are because of the clearances, and the North of England owes most it’s population to poors getting tricked into moving to brutally compact works towns and treated like cattle.
Instead of hearing the fears and needs of people they’re just attacked, called stupid and going by most the times I’ve seen it come up flooded by people saying things like ‘cars are bad, it would be better if we got rid of them all’ which is super unhelpful, it’s like calling a movement ‘defund the police’ and having everyone yell about how we should get rid of them all because they’re all bastard’s but not address the actual needs society has for people tasked with stopping crime - why do people supporting sensible and important things have to make their views sound so intensely unpalatable?
We need to address all the great things that cars and suburban living have brought us, and yes I can already hear the comments from people yelling that it’s a literal hellscape and traffic and etc etc etc but what are people who are living lives they enjoy going to say when they hear that? What are people who don’t want to live the small community lifestyle going to say when told it’s the only good way of living? When people who enjoy the benefits of modern logistics get told they’ll just learn to adapt to having less?
The dumbest bit is we could be focusing on positive additions to peoples lives and offering greater efficiency and freedom through the use of modern planning and technology - that’s what the 15 min city idea is actually about (kinda, depending who’s version you look at).
The logistics of a 15 min lifestyle have to exceed in quality of life the current system, and people need to actually agree not just be badgerd into accepting less. I could talk for days about how this can be done, key points include integrated transport networks to facilitate travel and exploration, nationalised version of Amazon and eBay with community shipping, zoning rules based on measured impact rather than use type (e.g. you’re welcome to live in a high noise area or have shops in a low pollution and traffic area if you can accept the limitations), nationalised services for community utilities to avoid corporate monopolies, measures to improve temporary relocation and travel, investment in affordable and efficient multi-transport cargo (rather than a removal van taking your house the whole way you fill a cargo container and have it collected by a lorry to do the first mile journey to a station where it’s loaded onto a train or ship to move to a transport hub then forwarded to the final destination where it’s taken last mile to the new address by a lorry…)
Improving logistics has to come first, the rallying cry can’t be ‘you need this and will have to try and learn to live with it’ it has to be ‘this is how we can live better lives’
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I’m not reading all that.
Sorry for you tho. Or happy that it happened.
You are right. And that is because any departure from that 15 minute zone by a vehicle is supposed to be billed. And people don’t want to be restricted to move free of charge only within those 15 minutes. Nobody is stupid not to want everything they need on a daily basis within a spiting distance.
because I love spending 4 hours in the bus to go to a park for lunch.
Not a problem if there’s a park and a cafe 5min walk from your house.
I cant tell if there were a bunch of people who missed the inherent sarcasm in my post.
Or if they genuinely believe a 4 hour bus ride to the park is a good thing.
Take this /s, we are on the internet, tone and intent don’t communicate via text. Use it wisely.
You must be talking about that liberal agenda to make communist “15 minute cities!”
Not today, bill gates!!
My local walkable grocery store is a Safeway. They sell a 3lb pack of ground turkey for $18.
Walmart, target, smart and final, and Lucky’s are all <$12, but I have to drive. And that’s one item. I save hundreds a month in groceries because I have a car and can shop around. I can wait for deals, I can buy in bulk.
The idea of a walkable city is nice, but if you restrict competition, prices skyrocket. And yeah, that Safeway is walkable to an apartment, the only grocery store that is, and they know it. It is infuriating to dismiss practicality for an dream.
Walkable cities and car hate are just another generations NYMBY’s. Those rich enough and finantialy secure to afford premiums that push others out. Meanwhile this transitional uncertainty greatly harms many of us struggling to make ends meet.
🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡
That’s one thing I won’t understand about this self-reclusive, anti-atomony movement.
Its basic logic. If I have a walkable radius of 1 mile and a drivable radius of 10, I have the accessability of all grocery stores within that area with a greater selection and purchasing power. These apartments I referenced have exactly one store to shop for groceries. The decision is literally A) Do you purchase an overpriced product for convenience or B) spend an extra hour and public transit to hunt a deal.
I mean sometimes I feel like I’m arguing with children; zero experience in real life. Yes, some can make it work. No, it doesn’t work for everyone. Area of accessibility and the competitive choices it allows, are essential to those not as well off.
I’m still undecided about this “fuck cars” movement, but you seem to be kind of saying that walkable cities won’t work because presently you can’t walk everywhere you want to go. I think the answer to that is simply that you don’t live in a walkable city - your city has been designed around the notion that everyone has access to a car.
I guess the inability to drive around smurfing up bargains is a very specific problem that walkable cities aren’t intended to address. I think the basic premise is that if there’s more people seeking basic vittles within walking distance from their home then competition will appear. They may not be quite as cheap as at the Walmart 10 miles away, but then the opportunities for local vendors will improve your own personal financial circumstances also.
As an aside, when you spend a little time in a large city with public transport and lots of shops, it’s easy to see how the fuck cars movement seems like a no-brainer. “If no one had cars then no one would need them!”… but as someone who lives in a regional / rural area it’s really hard to see how it could possibly work. I mean perhaps “possible” in some way but it definitely undermines most of the reasons I enjoy living away from a large city.
That’s the result of poor planning, and not true everywhere. Places with good planning for non-automotive transport have much smaller shops, smaller streets, and more of everything because of it. The radius you can reach within 15 minutes might be smaller, but the actual number of places you can get to can be much larger.
That doesn’t even make sense - you are in a neighborhood that only has one grocery store nearby due to car dependent planning, therefore walkability isn’t practical?
I live in a neighborhood that was definitely originally designed for cars and has been gradually getting better and I’ve already got at least two grocery stores I can easily walk to, plus two convenience stores and a pharmacy that’s kind of also a convenience store. Then I’ve got another three or four that I can easily bike to. And these aren’t small grocery stores, they’re all like massive supermarkets designed originally around car traffic.
If you spend time in places that have actual walkable neighborhoods, you find lots of much smaller grocery stores and you can easily shop around and compare prices on foot.
I think there’s a big difference in how you understand these things depending what angle you come from, logistically your situation makes no sense and only seems to exist, as you said, because of car centric infrastructure. Where I live was very much designed around foot traffic and yes it’s great being able to get all the daily things nearby, I love the parks and on rare occasions I actually went to go where the busses take me, plan to be back before they stop and don’t have to take more than a bags worth of stuff with me they’re great too.
There are very real problems though, local library is useful if you order books and don’t mind waiting forever, shops likewise are great for bread, cheese and snacks but unless you want a very boring diet and dont mind paying a premium otherwise you need to go somewhere with a higher volume of trade than the walkable zone around the local shops can support - that’s before you consider things beyond food like tools, clothes, and services.
All the small grocery stores their entire customer base can walk to are more expensive than larger stores and they all sell the same basic items - it’s just logistics. It’s not hard to look at the lives people here lived before cars, they had less and did less and lived much worse lives - well those the couldn’t afford a horse drawn carriage of course, personal wheeled transport has been deemed a necessity of good living for centuries.
Must be nice to be rich enough to have a car.
Luckily the stores I can walk to are pretty affordable.
My car is 20 years old, runs great, gets 30mpg, and easy to repair. It costs about $40/month in gas, $800/year in insurance and I purchased it used for $11500. Unexpected expenses usually run $500 every 4 years or so.
It opened doors to better employment, bridged the gap to my distant friends, supports my recreational activities, saved my life with a medical emergency.
Without it, I couldnt see my friends, family, or nieces/nephews. I couldnt see the milky way without light pollution. I’d have to accept what I’m offered rather than find what I need. I have to autonomy to pick a direction and explore; to find nature, peace or get away from civilization.
I’m not rich, but my life is richer with what I can do with a car.
Must be nice to be able to afford to pay $11500 for a car. More than half of Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck.
I generally agree with you, but I think you missed the mark here. People who manage to buy a used car that they may need to get by are not the issue here. I hate cars and car dependant cities, but also have a lease on a used one that I can barely afford because the town I’m in right now is 100% carbrained. When I lived in the city, I was proud not to own a car. I also currently don’t have the money for it in my budget, so my quality of life has taken a significant hit by this necessary purchase (though it would be much worse without it). I live paycheck-to-paycheck right now too.
Ok, same thing but I paid $3000. My car is 26 years old and running great.
You’re being so disingenuous, making it sound like car ownership is out the reach of half of Americans is the most absurd thing I’ve heard in a long time.
For most people a car is a vital expense to allow them to live, work and shop at far less expense so becomes a net saving. If you’re working minimum wage then you can afford a car, this is born out by the fact that cars are totally ubiquitous.
Bad and unfaithful arguments just hurt the cause
I spend $2500 a month for rent and take home maybe $800 more then that.
Many people can not afford cars, check your privilege.
You earn more than me, my car cost 2k. Over 90% of American households have at least one car, there’s a lot wrong with cars back lack of access to them is not one of the issues
Well, I live where there is terrible public transportation so everybody and their grandma has to drive everywhere and can tell you that’s a whole different ball game. Sure, maybe it’s cheap to drive where you are but here insurance is at least $300 per month per car, because since everyone is driving there are more accidents. So you may be getting subsidized by all the people who aren’t driving, basically.
Our downtown though has moved in the opposite direction, it was dead when I was in highschool, remember walking around there in the weekends looking at all the old empty buildings that used to be retail, we would explore it like it was historical ruins. But over time it’s come back and now many people living there & working there, restaurants and bars and little groceries, different from what it was, malls killed downtown retail then internet killed most of the the malls.
I’m thankfully not American. There are 3 large grocery stores within walking distance of my home. Also 5 bakeries, 3 greensgrocers, 2 furniture sellers, 7 butchers, 5 banks, 3 stationeries, 4 hairdressers… the list goes on and on. I’m not even very close to the city center, either.
Homer : Sir, I need to know where I can get some business hammocks.
Hank Scorpio : Hammocks? My goodness, what an idea. Why didn’t I think of that? Hammocks! Homer, there’s four places. There’s the Hammock Hut, that’s on third.
Homer : Uh-huh.
Hank Scorpio : There’s Hammocks-R-Us, that’s on third too. You got Put-Your-Butt-There.
Homer : Mm-Hmm.
Hank Scorpio : That’s on third. Swing Low, Sweet Chariot… Matter of fact, they’re all in the same complex; it’s the hammock complex on third.
Homer : Oh, the hammock district!
Hank Scorpio : That’s right.
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Aw, man, two thirds through your comment I upvoted you cuz I felt bad your joke got taken wrong.
But the winge-fest in the edit… Dude sometimes a joke doesn’t land, take the L.
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Ehh, all you really did was look obnoxious more than anything else. I don’t think you actually managed to upset anyone.
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I feel like fuckcars acts as a magnet for some of the more rabid redditor transplants from the antiwork sub.
Theres plenty of good points to be made but some of these kids are just red lining it all the time.
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I see only one that is sensitive here, and it is the one adding edits screaming about nobody liking their joke.
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